With her passion for pursuing Christ and her zeal for “living original,” Sadie Robertson is a role model for our daughters through and through.
As a part of remaining true to herself and her fans, the 20-year-old has always been an “open book” about the good, the bad AND the ugly in her very public life…but this week, she’s opening up about a topic that she has kept a secret until now.
“Many of you know I am an open book. I share most everything I walk through, but what I’m about to share with you is a particular topic I have always hidden,” she wrote in her blog post titled “I Woke Up Like This.”
Sadie intros her vulnerable post with an admission that she’s going to be “awkwardly honest” because the “‘I woke up like this’ lie is an uncomfortable one” for her to talk about.
The Duck Dynasty star started by sharing the experience she had at a recent photo-shoot that was supposed to be ‘all-natural,’ only to be told by the photographer that she didn’t have ‘the look’ to pull it off:
“I was a little shook by the change of plans the director decided to make by taking one look at me and stating his infamous comment, ‘Oh, no. This girl does not have the face for a no-makeup shoot.’ Ouch. Then, they sent me off for two hours to get my hair and makeup done. Yes, two hours to get that ‘all natural’ look so it could appear that I just happened to wake up like this…FLAWLESS.”
Live Original
“Once they were finally content with the look they had created, it was time for the shoot—but I knew it wasn’t over there,” she added. “They would undoubtedly go in later to Photoshop and edit any and everything that didn’t fit their standard of beauty, such as all those mysterious red dots on my face some of us refer to as pimples.”
But Sadie had one big problem with them projecting her Victoria’s Secret beach-wave curls and perfectly satin complexion as ‘natural.’
“Number one it is not really ‘me,'” she shared. “It is just simply a lie giving everyone something to compare themselves to that they can never compete with. Shoot, I can’t even compete with it.”
She doesn’t want to be the “photo-shopped girl behind the window or the screen” giving girls yet another impossible standard to aspire to, particularly because she’s been “damaged by ‘that girl.'”
“Tbh, I woke up LIKE THIS!”…
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“It was images like that with false advertisement that sent me down a spiral of trying to obtain an image I did not realize I was never going to be able to reach, because it was not real,” wrote Sadie. “I could have never imagined how much it would cost me to attempt to reach the standard of today’s beauty.”
The “Live Original” writer then transitioned into the meat of her message by exposing a personal struggle that she has “always hidden,” even from her own mother, until now:
“To be completely honest, it is because I did not know how to speak confidently about something that stole my confidence. I’m sure the media is going to love to run wild with this, but it’s part of my story and I feel led to share after recently finding out that 97 % of women have struggled with negative body image issues. It broke my heart, and I truly want to help change that statistic. Warning to all and as you are about to see me speaking from experience, it is not easy to jump to that 3%, but it is possible.
I struggled with an eating problem connected to a negative body image for about a year. It was dark. It was ugly. It was insanely difficult. It was done in secret. It was hidden. I did not even tell my own mother until recently. I thought I had everything under control. Maybe you have been saying that same thing? I didn’t even realize this small problem that I thought I had under control was creating a ripple effect, creating more and more problems, ones I certainly couldn’t control. I became angry with the person I was becoming. My self-worth was demolished, and I began to lose sight of my true identity.”
For a young woman who appeared to be so grounded in her identity, Sadie admits her struggles with fear and anxiety were still very real threats.
“My fear didn’t just stem from one particular thing,” she explained. “It was more of a [byproduct] of the battle happening in my heart and mind. I was trapped in a battle that took place 24/7, and it was one that day by day began to defeat me. My mirror, my pictures, my clothes, and my view were my worst enemies.”